(Written by kencraw)

My thoughts on re-watching game on TV:

• What was with running the ball on 3rd and 11 on that first possession? Just a “keep them honest” thing?
• Versus had their first ooops not a minute in with 3-5 seconds of black mid-broadcast.
• Although later in the game the AZ punter did a good job of punting away from DeSean, the first shank… pretty bad. It seems no matter how good the punter is they’re going to shank one if they’re instructed to punt away from DeSean all game.
• Another thing that Cal cleaned up later but didn’t do that well in the 1st quarter: Tackling. Way too many misses.
• The TV coverage didn’t give us nearly a good enough view to determine if indeed Syd’Quan blew the coverage on that long pass or whether the safety was supposed to be giving support. Syd seemed to play it like cover 2…
• That Morrah roll-out play… man I am impressed with his speed. He was 1/2 a stide short of breaking that for a TD.
• Hawkins first TD was definitely setup by over-emphasis on DeSean. He was open deep because Arizona bit on quick out by Longshore. Longshore looked it off and then saw Hawkins deep.
• I’ve reached the Technical Difficulties… do the announcers know that they’re having difficulties? (oh, now they mention it.) Nevertheless they haven’t done what a lot of announcers do which is give the details they usually give on the radio like down and distance. In fact they’re still saying things like “watch how they’re doing X”. HELLO!?! We can’t watch anything!!!
• Man… I wanted to see the roughing the passer hit on Longshore. I missed it during the game. Stinking Technical Difficulties.
• Wow, it took them 25 minutes to fix those problems. That’s unheard of. That must have been the most stressful 25 minutes in a TV trailer in the history of TV. They missed 6 1/2 minutes of game time and 14 points of Cal scoring. I can see how those who watched the TV coverage would be less positive about the outcome because those 6 minutes where the cornerstone on which the big lead was built.
• Continuing that thought, Arizona had ZERO defense while the TV was gone, but when the coverage returned they scored their lone TD until the late game comeback.
• Looks like my view of the Longshore INT was all wrong. Stevens was more crossing than running deep. Looks like the throwing lane closed faster than Longshore thought.
• And that 15 yard penalty on Cal was stupid. The defense doesn’t block the offense… it’s the other way around refs. I think he was diving (way too far away btw) to try and get at Cason’s feet.
• Mike Thomas for Arizona was fairly impressive. Yeah there were a lot of missed tackles on him but a big part of that was him getting Cal to miss. He seemed be the biggest threat against Cal particularly with the quick outs that he’d sprint up the sideline for big yards.
• It was nice to see Cal running the 2 minute offense again at the end of the 1st half. I’m sure we’re going to need to be able to run that in the 4th quarter at some point this year and it’s nice to see Cal get some experience.
• Nice to see DeCoud getting a pick… but that was a garbage pick. End of the half, AZ was desperate… but still nice to see.
• How can anyone be disappointed after a 31-10 first half? All around that was a great half. A half that reminded me of the 8 game winning streak last fall.
• Hahahaha… that halftime interview with Tedford was awesomely hilarious. The interviewer calls Tedford ‘Ted’ instead of Jeff, and then corrects himself, and Jeff doesn’t seem to like the guy to begin with. How does the interviewer make up for his transgression? He calls Tedford ‘Ted’ again as he’s walking away.
• Another area where the Versus coverage was weak was doing a replay more than once. The controversial hands to the face penalty that undid an Arizona TD was worth a second look especially since the first replay was abreviated and didn’t show the end of the play, but like every play, one replay is all we got.
• Stripped ball turnover was very good play by Cal. That’s the extra level that the defense needs: not only bend but don’t break… but also force the turnovers. That was the 4th turnover of the game.
• As I said in my podcast, the first of the offsides was definitely triggered by the center doing that extra move before he snaps the ball. We’ll see about the rest.
• As Cal went into its offensive funk, Longshore was missing his passes again… it seems Longshore really needs the pressure of a tight game to play his best.
• Versus also didn’t show Syd’Quan’s face-mask that kept Arizona drive alive after stuffed QB sneak.
• OK, I walked frame by frame through the offsides call on 4th and 6 on AZ drive inside redzone and I can say with confidence two things: 1. Center did his double-snap move again. 2. Williams was not offsides. He timed that perfectly. I’ve got the video frozen on the frame that matters right now and the ball is snapped and Williams is just on the line of scrimage… bad call by refs that cost Cal the turnover on downs (pass was incomplete).
• TD fade route was one of Syd’s worst coverages of the year, and I mean that as a compliment. He bit inside on what turned out to be a fade route and Tuitmana placed a ball in the corner where it needed to be for the TD. Syd ended up way out of position because he bit on the inside move by the WR.
• At the same time as Cal was sputtering that let AZ close the score, the defense also stepped up after the Montgomery fumble. Held AZ to a field goal.
• There’s no question about just how good Forsett is. Just as it looked like the offense was stalling, Forsett came back in and took the team on his back.
• The next referee snaffu… OK: we have a flag thrown at the line of scrimage, thrown before the QB threw the ball. Then we have a second flag thrown just after the QB threw the ball. Then we have two penalties: 1. Personal foul, in what appears to be roughing the passer, although we were never told what explicitely the personal foul was for. 2. Intentional grounding. Both of those would only be thrown after the ball was thrown, so it doesn’t account for the flag thrown at the line, particularly since there was nothing on the line that justifies a personal foul. What’s the story? I couldn’t see whether there was indeed roughing the passer, so I won’t comment, but what I do know is that there’s still a flag that was unaccounted for. And since there was a clear hold, it would have offset the personal foul.
• Continuing in our referee debacle… The personal foul for the late hit was the WOSRT CALL YET. There were four players in the tackle. The first player, #5, Syd’Quan, holds up the receiver but can’t quite get him down. #7, Peele, then come in and hits the receiver hard putting him down. It’s possible that the receiver’s knee went down before he got there but there was no whistle and it was only a brief moment before the hit. #15 comes in just behind Peele (like their bodies were overlapped on video), and basically joins the pile without hitting anyone very hard. He almost didn’t even touch the receiver being squeezed between Peele and Syd. Finally, and perhaps the lone guy who there was a remote hope of calling a late hit on, #93 comes in from the middle of the field, circles around behind the pile and lands on top of Peele and probably never touches the receiver. He may have been a moment late, although nothing egregious. That’s all well and good until the penalty is called on Peele who wasn’t even close to late. He, from what I can tell on video from a poor angle, was the guy who actually got the receiver down. Horrible, horrible call.
• Something I hadn’t noticed at the end of the game: Best got the majority of the last drive’s carries.

Some final thoughts:

The referees were every bit as bad as I thought at the end of the game. I don’t know why, but I really suspect that Stoops antics had something to do with it. That’s aggressive speculation on my part that isn’t giving the referees the benefit of the doubt, which I usually try to do, but oh well, those were horrible calls. In every single one of the final calls they did at least one thing wrong, even when I do my best to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Although I piled on in my commentary on Versus, we shouldn’t be too hard on them. They’re brand new at this and they’re a pretty high quality network. Their sailing coverage is excellent and their hockey coverage is pretty good too. They’ll get the college football sorted out. I guarantee everyone that by the Big Game, the other game on Cal’s schedule they’re going to be covering, they’ll have the kinks worked out.

Overall, after watching the game again, the Arizona comeback wasn’t as troublesome as it was to me during the game. Really, the moment that it seemed bad in the stadium was the Montgomery fumble because it setup a situation where it could have been a 7-point game. But it didn’t become a 7 point game, the defense stepped up and held Arizona to a field-goal. The penalties also made it seem like Arizona was going to make the comeback happen, but again in the end it didn’t come to pass. All of these things don’t bother me moving forward because I don’t think they reflect on how well Cal played and their potential to stick it to Oregon next week.

No, in the end, Cal executed well and the defense showed its ability to keep the spread in check. I think things look good going into Oregon next week. I don’t see Oregon repeating last year’s belly-flop, but I do think Cal should and will be favored going into the game and are likely to win in similar fashion to Tennessee.